Author: Serkadis

Who cares that wood stoves are environmentally-unfriendly and are heavily regulated in some areas? This one hangs on the wall, people! [Caminetti Montegrappa via Appliancist]

One of the more recent “moral panics” that we’ve seen is around this concept of “sexting,” where people (often youngsters who might not fully recognize the consequences of what they’re doing) send either naked or at least revealing images of themselves to others. In the last year or so the press has written about it quite a bit, and while it seems like it’s really just a situation that requires more education for kids to recognize what a bad idea this is, once you get a moral panic going, it’s never long before politicians feel the need to “help deal with” the issue, “for the children,” of course. Mark sends in the news that some politicians in Indiana have decided to tackle the issue with new legislation, though it’s not at all clear that the state Senators debating the subject even understand what sexting means:

“Until some terrible tragedy happens where a child or teenager commits suicide because they have been bullied by e-mail, texting or sexting,” said Rep. Sandra Blanton.

Bullied by sexting will lead to suicide? How? And how do you create a law to prevent that? Then there’s the politician who wants to ban mobile phones in schools to deal with this issue:

“Keep them in lockers and not allow them in the classroom or on school property to do the sexting,” Rep. Blanton said.

Really? The sexting happens on school property? If that’s the case, then wouldn’t the issue be public nudity — for which I would imagine there are already laws — rather than “sexting”? If he just means that the sending of these photos continues on school property, I’m not really sure how keeping the phones in lockers fixes anything. It just means those messages will be sent after school when there’s even less supervision of what the kids are doing. I guess that’s the head-in-the-sand approach to dealing with things, but I’m not sure how it helps any.

Certainly the issue of sexting is one worth educating kids about, so they recognize the dangers of passing on such photos which can quickly multiply and be spread further in amazingly embarrassing ways. But I don’t see how any law helps the issue at all — but plenty of ways laws can make things worse — especially when the politicians writing and voting on the laws don’t even seem to understand what the issue is beyond “sexting = bad!”

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Remember when McGraw-Hill CEO Terry McGraw confirmed the iPad—and its OS—a day early on national television? And then Apple pointedly left them out of the presentation? Well, McGraw-Hill doesn’t! No sir, never happened at all.

In a statement given to All Things D, McGraw-Hill spokesperson Steven Weiss backtracks laudably in an attempt to convince us we didn’t see or hear those things we saw and heard:

[Mr. McGraw]’s speculative comments about Apple’s pending launch, which he shared earlier in the day in a call with investors, were simply intended to suggest that if the new device were to use iPhone applications, many of our education products would be compatible with the technology and could be made easily available on it.

See what he did there? Whatever McGraw intended to suggest, what he actually said was that there was a tablet, and that it was running the iPhone OS. And he was right! Which makes it a leak. And the idea that the CEO of a guaranteed major supplier of iPad content wouldn’t have known those details about the device in advance is beyond inconceivable.

Honestly, the fact that Terry McGraw mentioned something that everyone knew—or at least, strongly suspected—was going to happen isn’t going to affect the number of iPads Apple sells one bit. So why not just own up to it? Oh, right. Because no one does that, ever. [All Things D]

Vancouver, Canada | Astounding Timepieces

Underneath Vancouver, Canada there runs a series of steam tunnels, with some of the tunnels apparently large enough to walk in. Running under major streets (cordova, water, cambie and maybe abbot) you can look down onto these tunnels through large grates in the sidewalk.

It is these steam tunnels, which heat much of downtown Vancouver, which power the steam clock, one of the world’s few functioning steam clocks. Despite seeming like a remnant of the Victorian age and being located in Vancouver’s “Gastown” which was indeed the rough and tumble downtown area of Vancouver in the 1870s, the Steam clock is actually from a hundred years later, built in 1977 by horologist Raymond Saunders.

Saunders was hired by Gastown’s local merchants to build the clock as a monument. It also had an alternative purpose, built over a steam grate, above one of the aforementioned tunnels, it kept local homeless from sleeping on the warm spot. The clock is likely only the second steam clock ever constructed, the first having been built by John Inshaw in 1859 when Inshaw operated the Steam Clock tavern to show off his steam powered inventions.

Because Inshaw’s clock was long ago lost, Saunders had to reinvent the steam clock from scratch, and though he did have the aid of old blueprints the first version was faulty. After raising more money to repair it, today the clock works perfectly. Saying the clock is steam powered is a bit of a misnomer, as the clock itself is powered by descending weights. The mini-steam engine in its base of the clock takes up the role of the human “winder” by raising a series of ball weights and delivering the weights to the clock drive train.

Every quarter hour, the two ton Steam Clock shows off a bit, whistling and shooting steam from its top. There are less than six other working Steam Clocks in the world.

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See Also:

• Is Your City STILL In The Housing Market Gutter?
• Rosenberg: Housing Is In A Depression, And It’s Already Double-Dipping
• How The Housing Bubble Destroyed Our Future

Ann Cairns is a Managing Director of Alvarez & Marsal and Head of the European Team managing Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc through Chapter 11. For an explanation of this roundtable, click here.

THERE is great merit in any scheme that would avoid the value destruction experienced in Lehman. But a number of things are needed to make this type of proposal work:

A legal structure that would allow regulators to take control and make decisions for failing institutions quickly. This wasn’t in place at the start of the crisis, but governments are moving that way e.g. the special resolution scheme in the UK.

A pre-crisis plan which can quickly achieve the recapitalisation of a bank. This may mean fundamental shifts in policy, such as the FDIC agreeing ahead of time to private equity companies acquiring banks.

Investors accepting the limitations of the restructuring over the loss of a messy bankruptcy. A six-fold amplification of loss in Lehman makes this palatable. But who’s to say that would result in every case? The litigation in Lehman shows such plans would need strong protection clauses for authorities.

However, such schemes may result in the continuation of untenable business practices. If business continued the following Monday, it’s unlikely all bad practices would be immediately transparent. New management would be appointed over time and there is a danger that a fundamental reversal of dangerous trends would not happen fast enough.

And what about trust? The funding facility from the big banks will be helpful. But consumer confidence might only be achieved by the full government backstops introduced in the current crisis, not necessarily for an investment bank like Lehman but certainly for a consumer bank like Northern Rock.

There are risks and obstacles associated with the bail-in idea. But many would have preferred it in the case of Lehman, rather than the huge loss incurred by an uncontrolled bankruptcy.

SPRINGFIELD — Republican governor candidate Jim Ryan on Thursday called on party officials to make public all documents related to an investigation of former GOP Chairman Andy McKenna.

McKenna, who resigned the chairmanship last summer and then launched a bid for governor, came under scrutiny for including his own name in party polling on potential governor matchups.

Questions about McKenna’s conduct were first raised in October by the Daily Herald.

A recent investigation order by GOP leaders concluded McKenna broke the organization’s ethical code. He apologized and both the party and McKenna have since said they consider the matter closed. The state Republican Party has declined to turn over investigators’ report on McKenna.

But questions linger as the race for the Republican nomination heats up among the six remaining GOP candidates.

First, part of the internal report was leaked to a downstate newspaper this week. The new documents reveal party officials concluded McKenna “compounded one ethical misstep with another” and a clear conflict of interest between McKenna’s political aspirations and role as chairman.

At the same time, McKenna skipped GOP debates, citing previously disclosed scheduling conflicts.

Ryan, a former state attorney general, said all such documents should be turned over so questions can be addressed now.

“Let’s not find out after Feb. 2 when it’s too late,” he said at a Chicago news conference.

Ryan challenged McKenna to “be a man. Step up and answer the questions.”

Neither McKenna nor GOP Chairman Pat Brady were immediately available for comment.

Read the original article on DailyHerald.com.

Oh boy….it just isn’t SuBo’s week, is it? Theater legend Elaine Paige — the Evita star idolized by Scottish songbird Susan Boyle — has revealed that she has no “pride” for Boyle, who she dismissed as “virus who has spread across the world in a nanosecond.”

Well…that was harsh. Paige made the reference while talking about Susan’s sudden rise to stardom after her jaw-dropping audition on Britain’s Got Talent last March.

Susan Boyle clapsed international success when she performed one of Elaine Paige’s signature tunes, “I Dreamed A Dream,” on Britain’s Got Talent. She went on to cover the song on her debut album of the same name — which has sold more than 1 million copies in the US since its release in November.

Eh — none of it really impresses Elaine. She refuses to grovel at the feet of a YouTube celeb.

“I don’t particularly feel any pride for her – I’m sure she is proud of what she has done. It’s all about turning someone into an immediate celebrity at the expense of longevity and working hard and experience,” Paige told The Daily Mail during the South Bank Awards in London this week.

“Susan Boyle is doing terribly well considering she literally came to the attention of the world overnight with the advent of YouTube,” she added. “She was like a virus really that spread across the world in a nanosecond. She is a girl with no experience of anything to do with theatrics, the music business, or art in any way. She has done terribly well to be a major star overnight with YouTube….”

Glad to hear you aren’t bitter, Elaine….(Insert Rolling Eyes…..) The sharp-tongued Cats actress continued firing off at Boyle when reporters asked whether the shy Scot has what it takes to maintain a long-lasting career in the industry.

“She is a major star because of YouTube. Longevity is gained through knowledge, experience and effort so it will remain to be seen,” Elaine replied curtly. “When I started, YouTube didn’t exist but even then with 15 years of experience prior to my success with Evita it was difficult, so I admire the way she handled her sudden success,” she further remarked. “Britain’s Got Talent and The X Factor just take a bunch of people from real life who think they can sing and try and turn them into overnight ’stars’ with a couple of songs. Ha ha. It’s not entertainment…..It’s all about turning someone into an immediate celebrity at the expense of longevity and working hard and experience.”

Together, they survived their mother’s mysterious disappearance, a sister’s recent death to cancer and other trials and tribulations in their troubled family.

But Cassandra Cales said her older sister, Stacy, whispered to her in one of their last talks that she feared she would not survive her attempt to divorce her Bolingbrook police sergeant husband, Drew Peterson, who monitored his wife’s every movement.

“She just looked at me with this blank face,” Cales testified this morning in Peterson’s ongoing hearsay hearing.

“She said she feared for her life and that if anything ever happened to her, Drew did something to her.”

Peterson is charged with the 2004 drowning murder of his third wife, Kathleen Savio, with whom he battled over finances while building a new life blocks away with a fourth wife, Stacy, about 30 years his junior.

Stacy vanished Oct. 28, 2007.

Peterson, 56, has not been charged in her disappearance.

Still, prosecutors must convince a Will County judge that Peterson made Stacy unavailable to testify before they can present any so-called hearsay statements others say she made implicating her husband in Savio’s death and the fourth wife’s disappearance.

At times tearful, the 24-year-old Cales described a close relationship with Stacy. The two traded up to two dozen text messages daily and spent that Friday and Saturday of the weekend Stacy disappeared together in her Bolingbrook home with the couple’s children while Peterson was on duty. Cales said a frightened Stacy opened up that Friday about her plans to divorce Drew Peterson.

“I said, ‘Let’s get out of here,’” Cales testified. “She said she couldn’t; she had the kids. She said he was basically above her because he had the job. She told me she wanted to go about it the legal way and do everything right.”

Cales continued: “She didn’t want any of his money. She just wanted her kids; to get away from him and get a restraining order.”

The two hung out the next night, too. Cales read their last text exchange, shortly after 1:30 a.m. Sunday, Oct. 28, 2007, as the two said good night. Cales said Stacy wrote:

I’ll call you if I can’t sleep, but I’m going to try now. Good Night. Sweet Dreams.”

Cales responded: “Ditto.”

That was their last correspondence, Cales said, choking back tears. She reported Stacy missing about 24 hours later after being unable to reach Stacy that Sunday.

She said Drew Peterson told her Stacy called him to say she had left him for another man, taking along $25,000, her passport, and other financial documents.

“He said one minute we’re having wild passionate sex and the next minute she wants to run away like your mom,” Cales testified, referring to her mother’s 1998 disappearance.

Cales said her sister bought a new cellular phone about one to two weeks before she disappeared because Drew Peterson had been checking her bill, then calling phone numbers to check up on her.

Cales said Peterson also didn’t want Stacy to have any friends and, once in front her, pushed Stacy against some furniture.

Upon cross examination, in an attempt to back up Drew Peterson’s explanation that Stacy left him, defense attorney George Lenard got Cales to concede a depressed Stacy had spoken of her desire to start a new life, was reconnecting with old male friends, and knew she lacked the financial means to take care of her children alone.

Still, Cales said, Stacy would never leave without her children.

The hearsay hearing, in which Will County Judge Stephen White is presiding, is in its seventh day. So far, prosecutors have called about 30 witnesses.

The defense team has repeatedly questioned the reliability of the witnesses, raising issues about their criminal past and bias.

Read the original article on DailyHerald.com.

It was mentioned a few weeks ago that XDA-Developers would be adding a few non HTC devices, and it seems those who wanted this have had their wishes granted.

The Omnia II is the first device added, with a few others scheduled shortly.

Do you think this is a good change of direction for one of the largest Windows Mobile development sites? Let us know below!

Edit:

It looks like the TG01 is the second non HTC device to be added.

Omnia II users can find the fora here, whilst TG01 users will have a forum here shortly.

WMExperts have just posted a nice in depth article on the Omnia II camera, a 5MP autofocus affair.

Whilst they didn’t have a huge amount of love for the device itself, they did have this to say for the camera:

No complaints with regards to image quality with either the still images or video capture. Images were a little on the contrasty side but not to a point of being damaging.

Disappointingly for me, the camera does seem to have some of that purple splodge syndrome the HD2 had.

Check out the full article here.

Is the quality of a camera a deal breaker for you, or like me do you carry a proper camera around if you know you’re going to be taking pictures?

Next weekend Peyton Manning will lead the Colts to a victory over the New Orleans Saints in Super Bowl XLIV. We’ll also be reminded over and over again about Hurricane Katrina. Retailers are hoping that you witness all this on a brand new HDTV. And you might consider it, too. After all, right now is the best time of year to buy a high definition TV — as long as you follow these six rules.Don’t pay the price on the tag

This is an important time of year for retailers and most will bend over backwards to get a sales. Smart negation is your friend. Most of the time all you need to do is say “Will you match Sears’s price? They said they would give it to me for $xxx.” Keep the statement simple and free of any stipulations like “if I take it today” or “if I pay for delivery.”

You must pre-shop for the model you want and sound like you know what you’re talking about to make this work. If the TV you want is already on sale, state a price 5% lower than what’s on the tag and 15% if the TV isn’t on sale. Don’t be greedy.

The key is to do this very early in the sale before you’re pitched accessories or the warranty. Otherwise these high-margin items will be used as leverage. You might still get the lower price, but the manager will probably tack something on as a requirement. You don’t want that. Just make sure you have a backup plan if this little games doesn’t work.

Buy for your room

Sometimes bigger isn’t always better. That 65-inch HDTV might look awesome hanging on Best Buy’s TV wall, but do you really want that monster in your livingroom? Often buyers are conned by the retail store’s high ceilings and excited salesmen into buying too much TV.

Consider how far away you sit, the height of your ceiling, and the quality of the set you’re buying. A good rule is that if you sit eight feet or less away, buy a 46-inch or smaller TV. If you’re ceilings are higher than the norm, you could probably get away with a slightly larger set. Unless you’re considering buying a cheap HDTV with a sub-par picture. Then you should probably go a bit smaller to compensate.

If you simply must have the largest possible set that will fit through your door, make sure it at least has an ambient light sensor that automatically dims when the room is darker. Otherwise your new HDTV will induce all sorts of headaches while making your house strobe like a laser light show at night.

Brick and mortar stores have great return policies

TVs get returned for all sorts of reasons and stores generally understand. Most do not even have restocking fees on HDTVs. So this opens up all sorts of possibilities for-the-less than honest person. There really isn’t anything stopping someone from borrowing an HDTV for Super Bowl Sunday. This isn’t something we’re encouraging here. We’re just simply pointing out what some people do…

Plan ahead if you want to wall mount the TV

Don’t expect to walk into Best Buy next week, plop down a good chunk of change, and have your TV hung on the wall by the big game. Most of the time it doesn’t work like that. Sure, some stores might be able to provide that service, but many cannot. Besides, you don’t want this done improperly, right?

Consider where all of your equipment will be located. Right now they are likely resting comfortably directly under the TV on a stand. But you’re mounting the TV on the wall, right? Do you still want a stand in your livingroom? If so, why not just put the TV on the stand and save the hundreds of dollars?

There are few options. First, keep the stand even though that seems a bit foolish. This is the least expensive options as the cables need to connect the TV and equipment can be relatively short. Use the top of the TV stand to display photos or flowers. Whatever.

Or you could stash the equipment somewhere else in the home like a bedroom or linen closet. They can really be placed anywhere as long as you have a remote that works on radio frequency instead of line-of-sight infrared. You really should invest into a good universal remote anyway. But this option can increase the installation cost dramatically depending on the cost of the remote and how long of a cable is needed to connect the TV to the set-top boxes. Just plan ahead.

Get your HDMI from your cable company or online

Please don’t help brick and mortar stores by buying an HDMI cable from them. They often sell the cables with a 2400% markup. It’s a dirty racket. Many times your cable company will provide an HDMI cable when you subscribe to their service and you always have the option of buying one online. Monoprice.com is a good spot.

But the cheapest option might not always be the best bet. New technology like 3D Blu-ray are often too much for some HDMI 1.3 cables to handle. If you’re planning on running this cable in the wall, opt for the more expensive and somewhat hard-to-find HDMI 1.4 certified cables. This way you won’t have to tear that cable out of the wall later down the road.

All you need is an antenna to watch the Super Bowl in HD

The Super Bowl is always broadcast on a major network. That means only an antenna is needed to pick up the HD feed. In fact, many find that over-the-air signals offer enough content that they don’t need cable or satellite. Plus, OTA HD offers a higher-quality picture than anything subscription TV can do.

Most of the time a table top antenna will do the trick, just don’t buy the cheapest option. Look for one that plugs into the wall for power and use this website to help fine tune its reception. Even the old aerial antennas many people still have on their houses will work.

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Oh man, I must be dreaming. Please don’t wake up! Please don’t wake up! Please don’t wake up! A mouse pad with a built-in 10-key number pad AND a three-port USB hub? All for $25?!

Yum.

It seems a little odd that the keypad would be to the left of the mouse pad but those of you lefties out there who also happen to be accountants with at least three USB peripherals that need to be plugged in have found your ultimate work-related number crunching weapon. According to the product description:

“This 3 USB Hub PC Keyboard Mouse Pad provides your mouse with a smooth surface ensuring greater accuracy, control, and faster response. It makes you point, click and drag quickly, smoothly and accurately. The numeric keyboard is very convenient to you.”

It’s also “easy to use, hot plug & play.” And who doesn’t like a little hot plug and play action?

3 in 1 Numeric Keyboard Mouse Pad Mat with 3 USB Hub [Meritline]

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We’re really excited to announce the official ReadWriteWeb iPhone app! The reading and sharing experience was key for us, so we kept the functionality smart and simple. As well as enabling you to read ReadWriteWeb while on the go or lying on the couch, we’ve made it easy to share ReadWriteWeb posts directly from your iPhone, on Twitter and Facebook. We’ve integrated with Read it Later and Instapaper, so that you can mark things to read later. You can also follow the RWW team on Twitter, directly from the app.

We invite you to find out more details about the ReadWriteWeb iPhone app and download it now from iTunes.

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I’d like to thank the developer of the app, Nicolas Koenig – who runs an iPhone development shop from the Netherlands called Toopia. Toopia also created the
Thermometer iPhone app, which enables your iPhone / iPod touch to get the current temperature based on your location.

I’d also like to thank ReadWriteWeb’s Webmaster Jared Smith and Marketing Manager Elyssa Pallai, who both put in a lot of work to develop this app.

So check out the new ReadWriteWeb iPhone app and download it from iTunes. Then tell us what you think!

Camera Plus Pro is the only iPhone camera app which offers geo-tagging, full-resolution photo editing, and multiple and simultaneous photo uploading to various sites. You can tag, search and personalize photos. Visit now and explore other power-packed features!

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There seem to be a lot of middling responses to yesterday’s announcement of the iPad, Apple’s latest entry into the world of really neat looking mobile devices. A quick look at the front page of Techmeme shows the variety of responses, from the iPad killing the PC to the lack of a camera killing the iPad.

Social media monitoring and analytics firm Sysomos took a look at the responses to the iPad over the past days, however, and said that the iPad has received an “extremely positive” response.

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According the the company’s Media Analysis Platform, the response to the iPad was an overwhelmingly 83% positive.

With only 17% of the results coming in on the negative end of things, it would seem that we love it. Even if we ignore the neutral, the positive does beat out the negative.

We have to wonder, however, what falls into the neutral category. At 48%, neutral sentiment makes up a majority of the 83% favorability Sysomos arrives at. Perhaps this is the middling response we’re seeing?

Whatever it is we’ve been saying, whether positive, negative or otherwise, we’ve sure been saying it a lot. According to the blog, there have been “477,537 tweets that included “apple” and “ipad” over the past two days; 33,892 blog posts and 7,315 traditional media articles.”

Maybe Apple should just release a product called the iBuzz that we could talk about and rate forever.

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Earlier this week we told you how New York Times op-ed contributor and author Thomas Friedman urged President Obama to take steps to help foster a new age of innovation and entrepreneurship. Well it seems that Obama may have received that message, as Wednesday night during his State of the Union address to Congress the president proposed a bill to help small businesses and entrepreneurs.

Perhaps Obama listened to Friedman, or maybe he saw the frenzied excitement that grows around new innovations like the iPad – either way, the president seems to have taken the first baby steps toward a more entrepreneurial culture in America.

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In the first quarter of a speech that lasted nearly seventy minutes – due in no small part part to the customary and, at times, comically frequent applause breaks – Obama leveled his focus on small businesses, calling for a $30 billion bill to help them attain credit from banks.

“We should start where more new jobs do — in small businesses,” said Obama. “Companies that begin when an entrepreneur takes a chance on a dream, or a worker decides it’s time she became her own boss.”

Obama also called for a tax credit which will go to small businesses that raise wages or hire more employees, along with with the reversal of taxes on small business investments. Instead of paying capital gains taxes, Obama proposed that small businesses should instead be given tax incentives for investing in things like new plants and equipment.

One idea that Obama did not mention which could bolster the nation’s innovative spirit is the so-called “startup visa” which could bring foreign entrepreneurs to the U.S. and create jobs – a movement we wrote about earlier this month.

As is the custom when the president gives his yearly address to congress, the Republican party chooses a representative to deliver their formal response. This year’s choice, Senator Bob McDonnell from Virginia, warned of growing government and increased spending, but agreed with the president that inspiring growth in small businesses is critical.

“We must enact policies that promote entrepreneurship and innovation so America can better compete with the world,” McDonnell said. “What government should not do is pile on more taxation, regulation and litigation that kill jobs and hurt the middle class.”

Embedded below is the White House video of Obama’s speech. Skip ahead to 13:14 to hear the president’s ideas for entrepreneurs and small businesses.

Photos by New York Times photographer Doug Mills and White House photographer Pete Souza.

Disclosure: ReadWriteWeb is a syndication partner of the New York Times.

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Kevin Singer, currently serving a life sentence in Wisconsin, has been a Dungeons & Dragons enthusiast “since childhood,” says the New York Times. Prison authorities confiscated Singer’s hand-written D&D paraphernalia and forbade Singer from playing his favorite role-playing game on the grounds that it might lead to gang activity. In a ruling Monday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit rejected Singer’s claim that the D&D ban violated his First and 14th Amendment rights.

Both legal and gaming blogs pounced on the story, and readers responded in droves. At last count, the post at Above the Law, which included prurient confessions and a distasteful sexual assault joke, garnered 73 comments; the Gizmodo post had 208.

Now, the argument that Singer’s nerdy hobby is a threat to prison security is too patently absurd for me to refute here. Do a lap around the blogosphere and you’ll read lots of predictable but fun jokes pointing out how unlikely it is that D&D would cause breakouts of violence.

But beyond the quirky particulars of this case, what is the news here? That prisons arbitrarily curtail the rights of inmates? Well, duh. What headlines should we look for in tomorrow’s NYT? “Drunk Person Makes Regrettable Decision”? “Economy Bad”?

(more…)

By Marisa Taylor, Reporter, The Wall Street Journal

Did anything other than the iPad happen Wednesday?

Did anything even matter before the iPad? Or did the lives of tech geeks as they knew them officially begin today?

Answers: No (unless you count Larry Ellison’s dream of buying the Golden State Warriors), no, and finally, yes. Especially if you have at least $499 burning a hole in your pocket and a desire to browse the Internet for 10 hours straight.

Nothing, not even some presidential address, seemed to overshadow the unveiling of Apple’s (AAPL) tablet in San Francisco. Aside from the gadget’s name, which some bloggers noted has the unfortunate tinge of a feminine hygiene product, a flurry of tech journos took to the Web to gush — or grouse — about their encounters with the iPad.

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Though it may have seemed like another one of Apple’s (AAPL) perfectly timed third party leaks (and I certainly mistook it for that), McGraw-Hill (MHP) CEO Terry McGraw’s remarks to CNBC earlier this week were nothing of the sort. The publisher tells me that it was not privvy to any iPad pre-launch details and that it’s misinterpretation to conclude that McGraw’s comments suggest it was.

“As a company deeply involved in the digitization of education and business information, we were as interested as anyone in the launch of the new device, although we were never part of the launch event and never in a position to confirm details about the device ahead of time,” Steven Weiss, VP of Corporate Communications for The McGraw-Hill Companies said in a statement given to Digital Daily.  “On Tuesday afternoon Mr. McGraw appeared on CNBC in a wide ranging interview to discuss our earnings announcement and growth projections for 2010.  His speculative comments about Apple’s pending launch, which he shared earlier in the day in a call with investors, were simply intended to suggest that if the new device were to use iPhone applications, many of our education products would be compatible with the technology and could be made easily available on it. Unfortunately, it seems that many mistakenly interpreted his comments as being more specific to yesterday’s announcement. It is also important to note that only the products of trade publishers were featured in the launch event. Our digital education programs are not in that category and were never part of those negotiations.”

It would seem, then, that contrary to other reports making the rounds McGraw-Hill was not abruptly excised from Apple CEO Steve Jobs’ presentation yesterday after McGraw’s disclosure on CNBC. And indeed, sources close to the situation say that McGraw was not given a demo of the iPad before its launch.

In retrospect, all McGraw really did on CNBC was to recycle and recast some comments made during the company’s Tuesday morning earnings conference call. Reading over those remarks, it seems plausible he was simply excitedly regurgitating the same collection of rumor and speculation we all were during the run-up to Apple’s event.
 
 ”In the near future, you will undoubtedly see a McGraw-Hill e-book for the college market running on an Apple tablet,” McGraw said during the company’s earnings call. “All our titles on CourseSmart, the industry e-book consortium, are already available to students on an iPhone operating system.  That’s because CourseSmart developed an iPhone application last summer with support from Apple.  The goal was to have core educational content available on the iPhone operating system, which also makes it possible for e-books to run on new Apple devices using that system.”
 
“Consider then the Apple tablet computer, which will be introduced shortly,” he continued. “There is a lot of secrecy about the introduction, but many expect that the Apple device will use the iPhone operating system.  If that’s the case, we are confident that our CourseSmart e-books should run well right out of the box on any Apple Tablet.  Stay tuned.”

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The iPad! A revolutionary, game-changing product. But also, far from perfect. Let’s help Apple out on that second front, shall we?

Don’t feel like you need to stick to realistic improvements, either. Sure, me adding Flash to make Hulu usable wasn’t too crazy, but please think outside the box here.

Send your best entries to me at [email protected] with Improved iPad in the subject line. Save your files as JPGs or GIFs under 800k in size (seriously, anything over will not be posted because our gallery system freaks out when we try to feed it lots of large files), and use a FirstnameLastname.jpg naming convention using whatever name you want to be credited with. Send your work to me by next Tuesday morning, and I’ll pick three top winners and show off the rest of the best in our Gallery of Champions. Get to it!